Le Secret des Sabon began as an experimental cuvée, which has evolved into one of the top wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. There isn’t much to go around, with only about a single demi-muid or a small truncated vat produced yearly from their oldest vines with their correspondingly minuscule yields. It is quite startling to taste Secret after Prestige, as one typically expects the “top” wine of the estate to be the biggest, but this is a red herring. While there is an unmistakable glyceryl weight to Le Secret, it is more high-toned than you would initially expect. Red fruit predominates with stony and herbal accents, lively acidity, and refined tannins that hint at a long life ahead. If we suppose you can wait that long. It carries itself as a Grenache-predominant wine and bears the ethereal hallmarks of a sandy terroir. Given the reluctance of Didier and the generally transparent house style at Roger Sabon, these are probably good guesses. Didier eventually admitted that there is 5% of something not Grenache in this cuvée and that these are the oldest vines at the estate. If we keep visiting each year, I’m sure we’ll get more details from him.
